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James Murdoch Joins Board of Media Company Vice

James Murdoch, a 21st Century Fox executive and the son of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has joined Vice Media as a director, two people with knowledge of the appointment said on Thursday.

Over the summer Fox acquired a 5 percent stake in Vice, whose brand of video and print journalism has spread from scrappy start-up to establishment outlets like HBO. Fox paid $70 million for its investment.

James Murdoch joined as a director as part of that deal, said one person with knowledge of the arrangement, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential internal moves. Vice remains a privately owned company, with majority control of the board.

Mr. Murdoch had previously been the chief executive and chairman of his father’s European and Asian businesses. But after a phone hacking scandal in Britain, in which journalists at Murdoch papers were accused of illegally accessing the voice mail messages of public figures, he moved to New York to assume new positions within News Corporation, which this summer split into two companies.